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- Justine Stoddart
Biography
Jeremy Strong writes books for children, mainly of junior school age, and has a special interest in children who are becoming independent readers and those not particularly interested in reading.
All of his books are humorous, and about real life situations with a surreal edge. These include My Mum's Going to Explode (2001), a tale of what happens when Nicholas' mother suddenly announces she is pregnant, and There's a Viking in my Bed (1991), which was recently dramatised for Children's BBC Television. Krazy Kow Saves the World - Well, Almost (2002) was named one of the 50 best children's books of the Year by the Federation of Children's Book Groups in 2003, the same honour being awarded to I'm Telling You, They're Aliens (2000)in 2001. Several stories have been adapted for BBC Radio and he has also written particularly for that medium. He has also written two novels for teenagers: Stuff: The Life of a Cool Demented Dude (2005) and Weird (2008).
Jeremy Strong was born in 1949 in South East London and studied English at York University, after which he became a teacher and Head teacher, leaving the profession in 1991 to write full-time. He lives in Somerset and is currently leading a 'Campaign for Fun', to encourage reading for pleasure.
Bibliography
Awards
Author statement
When I was a child my friends and I seemed to spend most of our time playing in the fields behind our house, making up our own games. We had to use our imagination all the time, especially when we got into trouble and had to talk our way out of it, and that was great practice for becoming a writer later on. I wanted to be a writer from about the age of nine, although I didn't do anything about it until I was well into my teens. After working at jobs like putting jam into doughnuts and picking strawberries I eventually became a teacher, working with primary school children. I began to write for them and I wrote the sort of books I always longed to read as a child - funny, exciting stories that would make me laugh out loud. When I was a child there were very few books like that for us to read, so I hope I've added a few more to the pile. Writing is amazing: it is one of the most powerful things anyone can do, because you can make anything happen when you write. Try it and see.
